Mind-Altering Murder Read online

  "And the emergency room is this way," O'Hara said.

  "I'm sorry. If you need help on a case, I'm usually there for you," Shawn said. "But I'm in the middle of my own, and I don't have any time to spare."

  "I don't have a case at the emergency room," she said, trying to follow his logic. "I'm taking you there because you look like you're about to die."

  "I'm fine," Shawn said.

  "You could barely stand up when I came to your door," O'Hara said.

  "So I'm a little tired," Shawn said. "I haven't been sleeping a lot lately."

  "Or eating?"

  "I went to BurgerZone just, um ..." His voice trailed off as he tried to remember exactly when that had been. "They don't allow food in the Imaginarium, and by the time I get out everything is closed. Besides, when you've spent the entire night trying to cut through steel plate with a butter knife, it's hard to work up an appetite."

  "Shawn, listen to yourself," she said. "You're hallucinating."

  "I'm not."

  O'Hara had wondered what the breakup with Gus might have done to Shawn. Gus had always been his anchor, the one who kept him from flying off into flights of fantasy. But she couldn't bring herself to believe that this might have been literally the truth. That without Gus, Shawn would actually spiral down into insanity. Something else was going on.

  "I'm going to get you to the hospital," O'Hara said. "You're exhausted, probably dehydrated. A little rest, some IV fluids, and you won't believe how much better you'll feel."

  "There's only one thing that's going to make me feel better and that's to make that scrawny college girl talk to me," Shawn said.

  Was it possible that this was the problem? Shawn was in love and the object of his affection had shut him out of her life? If so, this was a side of Shawn she'd never seen. He'd been with women before, one of whom was a regular--or at least regularly recurring--for a good twenty-six weeks before he'd allowed her to be written out of his life. But he'd never acted obsessed like this.

  "If you'd like me to talk to her, I can do that," O'Hara said carefully. "Just as soon as we get you to the hospital."

  Shawn brightened, and for the first time since he'd opened the door she saw a little of his usual cockiness. "You could talk to her," Shawn said. "You can probably speak her language."

  "What language is that?"

  "Student," Shawn said. "You went to college, right? You must have known women like this. Turn right here and get on the freeway."

  "Hospital first," O'Hara said.

  "I don't need a hospital. I need a translator," Shawn said. "There's a man missing out there, and if I don't find him he might die. And I can't do anything about it if that girl won't tell me what she knows."

  O'Hara knew she should slam her foot down on the accelerator and get Shawn to the emergency room as fast as possible. But before she could put that plan into action, she made one mistake--she looked over at him. And what she saw was not the hollow, shambling mockery of a man who had answered the door, but a pale, shaky version of her old friend. The light was back in his eye and the grin on his face.

  "I'll give it half an hour," she said. "And then I'm taking you to the hospital."

  Chapter Seventeen

  "What the hell are you doing?"Juliet O'Hara backed away from Shawn, but not fast enough. She could feel the bullet whizzing past her ear.

  "The guard was reaching for his gun," Shawn said, wheeling around to level his shotgun at the other security guard, who was cowering under a desk.

  "So you killed three hostages to teach him a lesson?" she said, pointing at the bodies lying on the jewelry store's marble floor.

  "Oh, no," Shawn said. "That's going to cost me a chunk of my inventory. We'd better check their pockets to see if there's anything we can use."

  O'Hara looked around the jewelry store in disgust. She'd been at hundreds of crime scenes in her career, and seen more than one hostage situation go bad. But she'd never actually been one of the hostage takers before, and even though the victims were all virtual, she wanted to throw up.

  "People do this for fun?" she said, practically spitting the last word.

  "Not yet they don't," Shawn said. "I'm the only outsider who's been allowed to play the game. Except for Gus, of course, and he left before he got anywhere near level seven."

  "At least I can see why you were looking so bad when I picked you up," she said. "This can't be good for you."

  "It's just a game, Jules," Shawn said. "Don't take it so seriously."

  If she had been taking this seriously, O'Hara thought, she would have pulled off her helmet after thirty seconds and called Judge Sanderson to get a warrant to shut the entire company down. She wasn't sure what law this game violated, but there had to be something. And if there wasn't, she'd run for Congress so she could write one.

  It wasn't that O'Hara had anything against computer games. She'd grown up playing Zork and Myst, and even wasted some time at her previous jobs blowing away Nazi soldiers in Castle Wolfenstein.

  But Criminal Genius wasn't just a game. It was an entire world, completely immersive and realistic in almost every way. And it wasn't just sights and sounds. Thanks to the full-body virtual suits, the game also provided a sense of touch. When you picked up a virtual object you could feel its weight, its texture. O'Hara had to admit that when Shawn first led her into Darksyde City she had been astonished. This was an entirely new art form, and one that could bring marvels to life.

  Unfortunately, the designers of Criminal Genius apparently had no interest in bring marvels--or anything else--to life. Every bit of technological and artistic wizardry that had gone into the game had only one purpose: to teach the player how to be a successful criminal. And the more vicious, the better.

  This wasn't a computer game--it was a training program for incipient psychopaths. And as she looked at Shawn aiming his gun at the trembling hostages, she saw the virtual world's effect on him. He was enjoying this, committing hideous acts of virtual violence even when he didn't need to in order to advance the plot. What kind of impact would this have on him in the real world?

  "I'm not the one who's taking it too seriously, Shawn," she said. "You dragged me in here to help you solve a crime, remember?"

  "Of course I remember," Shawn said. "We need to find Fawn Liebowitz."

  "I thought you said she'd show up when you tried to steal the diamond," O'Hara said. "Where is she?"

  "It has to be a new attempt," Shawn said. "I've tried this approach before."

  She stared at him in horror. "You mean you did this for nothing?"

  "You needed to get a feel for how the game works," Shawn said. "You don't want to find yourself in a gunfight if you don't know what it's like when people start dying in here."

  "I don't want to find myself in a gunfight at all," O'Hara said. "I just want to get out of here and take a long, hot shower."

  She reached up to pull off her helmet, but Shawn put a hand on her arm to stop her. "Jules, just try to relax a little."

  "This room is bathed in blood," O'Hara said.

  "Hardly bathed. Maybe a little shower," Shawn said, then seemed to realize how upset she was becoming. "It's pixels. No one actually gets hurt. Geez, when did you become such an old lady?"

  "I'm an old lady?" O'Hara said, feeling the veins in her temples throbbing. "I'm an old lady?"

  "You're sure acting like one," Shawn said. "Lighten up. Play the game. Have some fun."

  She dropped her hand away from the helmet. "You want me to play the game?"

  "That's kind of the point."

  "You want me to have some fun?"

  "Ideally," Shawn said.

  "Okay, then," O'Hara said.

  Shawn broke into a wide smile. "You're really going to enjoy this, Jules. I bet you're going to--"

  Shawn's lips finished the sentence, but no sound came out of his mouth. Which wasn't surprising since his head was no longer attached to his neck.
r />   O'Hara dropped her still-smoking shotgun to the floor. It hit just as Shawn's body crumpled down beside it.

  "You were right, Shawn," O'Hara said. "This game can be fun if you give it a chance."

  She reached up and gave her ears a sharp twist, then lifted her own head off her shoulders. The jewelry story dissolved around her and the last thing she saw before everything went black was Shawn's body, twitching slightly on the floor.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Shawn blinked against the harsh white light of the Imaginarium. O'Hara had already put her helmet back in the rack and was heading for the door.

  "Wait, Jules," Shawn said.

  "Don't bother, Shawn," she said. "I was going to take you to the emergency room, but it's pretty clear that Santa Barbara General isn't the kind of hospital you need."

  "I'm not crazy," Shawn said. "I'm sorry if I came across that way. I've been playing this game so much lately that I've gotten used to the world. Believe me, seeing it through your eyes reminds me how horrified I was the first time I put on the helmet."

  That, of course, was a lie. The first time Shawn had entered Darksyde City he'd hijacked a car and run down pedestrians until a fleet of police cars forced him into the side of a building, killing him and ending the game. But there was some truth to the statement. After all, Gus had been pretty repulsed by the whole thing, and since they'd still been partners when they first played the game Shawn felt he was entitled to claim fifty percent of his reactions.

  Besides, even if it was a lie it seemed to be working. O'Hara was still standing by the door but she hadn't taken another step.

  "Look at yourself, Shawn," she said. "You haven't eaten. You haven't slept. God knows when you last changed your clothes. You've become obsessed with this game. And now that I see what it is that has you under its spell, I'm really worried about your mental health."

  "I don't keep coming back here because I enjoy playing this sick, twisted game," Shawn said, knowing that if he tried lying this blatantly inside Darksyde City his nose would grow at least fifteen inches.

  But without the contradictory evidence of an expanding organ, he had apparently managed to strike the right note of sincerity and contrition. She actually moved away from the door a little. "Then why?"

  "It's about finding Macklin Tanner," Shawn said. "We may disapprove of his work, but there's no denying that the man is a genius. And somebody has kidnapped him."

  "The SBPD looked into the disappearance weeks ago," O'Hara said. "Detectives Bookins and Danner found no evidence of foul play."

  "If it had been Detectives O'Hara and Lassiter, maybe I'd be a little less concerned," Shawn said. "Well, maybe not Lassie so much. The point is, the fact that there was no evidence makes this even worse."

  "Because if he was kidnapped it was by someone who really knew what he was doing," O'Hara conceded. "But who and why?"

  "I don't know why," Shawn said. "Maybe there's some kind of entity out there that needed his expertise and couldn't get it legally so they were willing to pay huge amounts of money to anyone who'd deliver Tanner to them. As for who, I'm convinced it was someone inside this company. And I'm equally convinced that person left a clue in this game so that the world could admire his genius."

  "And you think this Fawn Liebowitz is that clue?"

  "I think she holds it," Shawn said. "The rules of the game may seem random when you first enter Darksyde City, but they are real and they are consistent. They have to be to make the game play satisfying. She's the only thing I've come across that doesn't fit."

  "How many times have you tried to make her talk?"

  Shawn thought back on his encounters with the student and all the knives, guns, bombs, and poison-gas grenades she'd used to kill him. "At least thirty," he said. "Maybe more."

  "What seems to be the problem?"

  "I don't know how to talk to her," Shawn said. "There's clearly something I'm supposed to say or do to make her open up, but nothing has worked."

  "Well, what have you tried?" O'Hara said.

  "I tried being nice to her," Shawn said. "She cut my throat. I accused her of kidnapping Tanner and she blew us both up. I got tough a bunch of times, but she kept finding ways to turn whatever I was using on her against me."

  Shawn noticed that look of disgust creeping back onto O'Hara's face. He moved on quickly. "I tried romance a few different ways. I brought her flowers. I offered her jewelry. I even proposed marriage."

  "And none of that worked?" O'Hara said, a smile replacing the look of horror. "What kind of game is this?"

  "I'm out of ideas," Shawn said. "That's why I was so excited when you came to my door. Because maybe you can get through to her. I'm thinking she speaks a language that only college students understand."

  "I don't think so," O'Hara said.

  "Sorry I dragged you out here for nothing, then," Shawn said.

  But O'Hara still wasn't moving toward the door.

  "I don't think it's a matter of speaking a language only students can understand," O'Hara said. "I think you need to speak like a woman."

  Chapter Nineteen

  Shawn was on his best behavior. When the streetwalker came up to them and asked if they wanted to party, Shawn knew that the correct response--the one that would add several rounds of ammunition to his cache--was to steal her money at gunpoint. Instead he politely declined and led O'Hara down the street.

  Not that she was acting as squeamish as she had been the first time they'd entered the game together. She seemed to have accepted Shawn's reasoning, and instead of being repulsed by what she saw, she took it all as a necessary part of his investigation. She still had qualms about committing the kinds of criminal acts needed to get ahead in Darksyde City, but Shawn was pretty sure that he'd seen a smile on her face when the pustulating wino tried to mug her and she blew him away with a blast from her semiautomatic rifle.

  The first real test came when Shawn laid out his plan to lure Fawn Liebowitz to them. He'd acquired a pile of dynamite on an earlier level, and he was going to use it on the dam that held in the local reservoir. The ensuing flood would wipe out a whole neighborhood, but it was the one thing he hadn't tried to get into that jewelry store vault. When he pitched her the idea Shawn studied O'Hara's face closely--at least he studied the face of her avatar, but since the insides of the helmets were lined with tiny cameras to record and mimic the players' facial expressions, he knew it was an accurate gauge of her mood--and she took it calmly.

  But even when they were actually laying the dynamite at the foot of the dam, Shawn wasn't sure he'd won her over to his side. As Shawn taped three sticks to the concrete and set their fuses burning, a man's voice shouted, "Stop there!"

  Shawn turned slowly to see a security guard emerging from the darkness, pointing an enormous pistol at him. Shawn reached for his own gun, but before he could raise it the guard shot it out of his hand.

  "That was a warning," the guard said. "Next one goes right through you. So do the hundred after that. Get the picture?"

  "Got it," Shawn said. "What do you want me to do?"

  "That depends," the guard said.

  "On what?"

  "On how much you piss me off," the guard said. "If you're nice, all I want you to do is die. But if you make me really mad, I'm afraid I'm going to have to insist you suffer the agonies of the damned."

  "That sounds like fun," Shawn said, "but I'm kind of in a hurry. So I think I'll pass."

  "Then die," the guard said, raising his gun.

  There was no time for Shawn to grab one of his own weapons. He took a step backward, fumbling blindly behind him with one hand. At first there was nothing but concrete. And then he felt the cold, hard tube. Shawn closed his fist around the stick of dynamite and yanked it away from the face of the dam, then hurled it at the guard.

  Just as the dynamite left his hand, Shawn heard O'Hara's voice screaming at him. "Shawn, no!"

  Let her be horrified, Shawn t
hought. If she couldn't stand the thought of the guard spattering down on her like red rain, she should have stayed on her side of the dam. This was business, after all.

  But if O'Hara was horrified she wasn't showing it. She whipped out her own gun and got off one shot. Thanks to the time-altering effect of the software, which slowed down the entire world from the moment a gun was fired until the bullet found its mark, Shawn was able to watch the projectile fly through the sky until he realized where it was heading--directly toward the dynamite.

  Shawn dived to the ground just before the bullet struck the stick. Even so, he felt the blast wave slam him into the dirt. When he could finally get back on his feet he saw the security guard lying on his back and O'Hara standing over him with her pistol pointed at his head.

  "Nice shooting," Shawn said. "What was the point?"

  "The point was not letting you kill the guard," O'Hara said.

  "That's a nice sentiment, but it kind of leaves us with a problem," Shawn said. "Because the instant you take your gun off that guy, he's going to pop up and kill us both. Believe me, I've played this game long enough to know exactly what kindness and gentleness get you."

  That wasn't exactly a lie. Shawn had played the game long enough to have learned this lesson. He didn't actually know how goodness would be rewarded only because he'd never actually tried such a tactic.

  "I'm not being nice," O'Hara said. "But if I let you kill this guard we'd never get out of this damn game."

  "We can leave whenever we want, Jules," Shawn said patiently. "Even if we get caught and thrown in jail, we've just got to take off our helmets."

  O'Hara sighed impatiently. "Look at the guard," she said. "What do you see?"

  Shawn did as he was instructed. "It's a security guard," Shawn said. "Standard-issue in this game, right down to the beard stubble and the paunch."

  "What about the uniform?"

  Shawn looked a little more closely. "It's got the usual stains from coffee drips and doughnut crumbs, but it's a little less wrinkled than some other ones I've seen in the game," he said after some study.